Large structures, particularly those having a substantial linear configuration component, are subject to flexing or oscillation, which is particularly noticeable at opposite ends of the structure. For example, in a terrestrial environment, very tall building structures (skyscrapers) are subject to natural forces such as wind and geological vibrations, which cause the building to oscillate or sway. To effectively dampen or minimize the sway, it is common practice to employ an inertial compensation mechanism such as a system of translatable weights at the top of the building, which is operated so as to effectively impart a prescribed vibration behavior designed to effectively counter the sway.
Space deployed structures, however, unlike their earth-bound counterparts, are completely free to translate and rotate, and therefore require a precise inertial compensation mechanism for maintaining a stabilized orbital attitude. One device that has been employed for this purpose is the control moment gyro. Such a device, however, not only has limited translation control range (stroke) but also requires the addition of a rotational-to-linear conversion mechanism, which constitutes an orbital launch payload add-on. These drawbacks become particularly acute as the structure to be deployed is of a large, substantially rectilinear configuration, e.g. a long multi-truss framework adapted to support a variety of communication, sensor/scan probe and power modules